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Campbell
University
Harnett County, North Carolina
Aramark
January 17,
2008 Dunn Daily Record
The Harnett County Sheriff's Office has busted a burglary ring which
struck Campbell University student housing during the Christmas holidays. Two
suspects have been arrested and Harnett County Sheriff Larry Rollins said he
plans to arrest three more but offered no details. In custody are Terrance
Jerel Moore, 21, and 22-year-old Leslie Herman Gaitor,
both of Main Street in Buies Creek. Both men have
been charged with 12 felony counts each of breaking and entering, larceny and
possession of stolen goods. Mr. Moore was employed as a cook at the
Chick-fil-A on the Campbell University campus, which is run by the Aramark
food management company. An Aramark official declined comment. Sheriff
Rollins said all of the suspects in the case except Mr. Moore are former
Campbell students. Most of the burglaries took place in Bob Barker Hall, he
said. Stolen items included laptop computers, PlayStation games and
textbooks.
Cree Incorporated
Durham, North Carolina
Group 4
October 19, 2005 News Observer
An early-morning immigration sweep at Cree Inc. resulted in the arrest of 36
undocumented workers Tuesday. Most of the people arrested were employed by a
contractor to Cree, which makes semiconductors. The bust was the first at a
high-tech company since U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement began
focusing on facilities that the government considers strategic or sensitive.
All but 10 of those arrested were employed by a maintenance and cafeteria
services subcontractor, GCA Services Group of West Conshohocken, Pa. Also, in
early February, ICE arrested a Kenyan man working at Cree as a security
guard. He was employed by Wackenhut, another Cree contractor.
Charlotte Transportation Center
Jul 28, 2018 wsoctv.com
Video shows security officer punch man at transit center uptown
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - A security officer was caught on camera punching a man in
handcuffs at the Charlotte Transportation Center in uptown. Charlotte Area
Transit System officials took action and told the
security company, G4S, that officers assigned to the transit center must get
training on the use of excessive force. The video was taken by a passenger on
July 7, but the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department did not know about
the incident until Wednesday. The video shows a group of officers working
under contract with CATS surrounding a man on the ground. The man on the
ground was Patrick McManus, 25, who has been arrested more than two dozen
times in the past three years. McManus was being escorted away when he
apparently fell down. That was when a security officer punched McManus about
two times before another officer stepped in to push him away, the video
shows. McManus was taken to jail. CMPD is investigating the incident, listing
McManus as the victim. “I'm glad that they're looking into it, and hopefully
if it's determined that charges are warranted, that that would in fact,
happen," said Willie Ratchford, CMPD community
relations committee president. Ratchford said
there's no excuse for what that officer did. CATS officials told G4S the
officer who appeared to punch McManus and his supervisor can't
work as CATS contractors anymore.
Duke University
Durham, North Carolina
Oct 30, 2012 By Jay Price The News and
Observer
BUTNER -- A Florida-based company that lent its CEO more than $5 million for
an Angus cattle ranch and a biography and screenplay about himself has gone
into receivership, leaving Duke University Health System and area doctors’
offices owed more than $8 million for treating patients from Butner federal
prison, according to court records and officials of the state medical
society. MDI Holdings Inc., of Ponte Vedra Beach,
Fla., had a contract to administer some of the health care for the 5,000
inmates at the prison, subcontracting the work to Duke and local physicians.
The federal government let the Butner contract expire earlier this year after
problems surfaced with MDI’s finances. Last month, Wells Fargo won a $30
million lawsuit that forced the company into receivership. This means that
apparently Wells Fargo, which had lent MDI $37.5 million over several years,
will get any money left at MDI, said Conor Brockett, associate general
counsel with the N.C. Medical Society. The society isn’t sure how many of its
members are owed money, Brockett said. It has fielded calls from about 10 so
far and has begun spreading the word that none are likely to recover a cent
from MDI. It has begun investigating, though, whether the Federal Bureau of
Prisons has any obligation to pay the outstanding bills for treating its
prisoners. “At this point, our take is that they have no chance of getting
anything out of MDI because Wells Fargo, as a secured creditor, was first in
line, and they are squeezing as much as possible out of the remaining assets
to satisfy that debt,” Brockett said. Duke is unsecured creditor Duke and the
various doctors’ offices who are owed money are unsecured creditors, which
puts them further down the list of creditors to be paid from the remains of a
collapsing company. A new company is administering the Butner health care
contract. Among the doctors who weren’t paid is Douglas Holmes, who owns ENT
& Audiology Associates in Raleigh. His small office is owed $27,000 to
$30,000 for work it did with prisoners. The problems started last winter,
Holmes said, when MDI began sending payments for just a fraction of some
bills. It took awhile for the company that handles his billing to notice,
because there were payments in each case, just the wrong amount. Then the
money stopped coming in altogether. Holmes said he probably should have
caught on more quickly, but a contract being paid by the federal government,
albeit through a contractor, didn’t seem like something that required close
monitoring. “Who provides services to the U.S. government and worries that
they’re not going to get paid?” he said.
January 19, 2006 The Chronicle
Duke Student Government kicked off its first meeting of the spring semester
with an eye toward the future Wednesday night. During the meeting, DSG
discussed the upcoming confidence-no confidence vote on ARAMARK, Corp.—the
Philadelphia-based company that operates a number of eateries on campus. Every
year, DSG votes on whether or not it has confidence in the current dining
service. The decision is ultimately brought before the Board of Trustees,
which has the final say in whether or not to renew the company’s contract.
For the past two years ARAMARK, which operates the Great Hall, the
Marketplace, Trinity Café, Subway and Chick-Fil-A, has received a “no
confidence” vote from Duke University Student Dining Advisory Committee and
DSG. The vendor has nonetheless remained on campus. Senior Paige Sparkman,
vice president of student affairs, said the upcoming vote is “extremely
important” because ARAMARK’s five-year contract is up at the end of this
year. “There can be a more drastic result of the confidence-no confidence
vote this year,” said DSG President Jesse Longoria, a senior.
Durham County
Durham, North Carolina
Aramark
September 13, 2005 The Herald-Sun
A report from the county finance office shows that more than half the
contractors required to comply with Durham's "living wage" policy
have failed to submit payroll records that would show whether they're doing
so. The report, forwarded recently to County Manager Mike Ruffin, also
alleges that three contractors violated the policy by paying workers less
than the required minimum salary, which now stands at $10 an hour. The others
on the list are: -- The Aramark Corp., which had two contracts worth $33,429
from the county General Services Department and the Sheriff's Office. --
Carter Goble Associates Inc., which had a $17,000 contract to provide staff
to the county jail.
East
Carolina University
Greenville, North Carolina
Aramark
March 10, 2005 The East Carolinian
An ARAMARK cashier working on campus was arrested when found with two
financial cards belonging to members of the ECU community. Police said
Lawanda Patrice Draughn, 22, worked at Java City in
Wright Place when she allegedly kept credit cards from two of her customers.
"The two individuals went to Java City and purchased coffee ... and then
they walked away without their cards," said Major Frank Knight with the
ECU Police Department. Once the victims realized they did not have their
cards, they called the credit card company. The company representatives told
them purchases had been made since the cards were lost. More than $200 was
spent on one card and more than $1,000 on the other. ECU Police went to the
stores where the cards were used, spoke with cashiers
and viewed store videotapes. "It was good leg work by the police
officers," Knight said.
Gaston County Jail
Gastonia North Carolina
Prison Health Services
August 23, 2007 Charlotte Observer
Prison Health Services, Gaston County and Sheriff Alan Cloninger are
being sued in the 2004 death of a jail inmate who suffered a seizure in his
cell. The lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges that Prison Health Services, a
company contracted by the jail, failed to provide Hugh Locklear Jr., 21, his
epileptic-seizure medication and didn't monitor his condition. The suit,
which seeks in excess of $75,000, alleges that the defendants violated
Locklear's civil rights by showing a "deliberate indifference" to
his "serious medical needs." It was filed in U.S. District Court by
Pamela Dunbar. The suit does not specify her relationship to Locklear.
Cloninger and the county's attorney could not be reached Wednesday. Citing
patient confidentiality, Prison Health Services would not comment,
spokeswoman Susan Morgenstern said. On Aug. 28, 2004, Locklear collapsed in
his cell, police said, and was pronounced dead at Gaston Memorial Hospital.
His father, Hugh Locklear, 41, was also an inmate at the time. He has said
his son never got epilepsy medication at the jail despite repeated requests.
Locklear Jr. had been taking phenytoin and carbamazepine for seizures, but
refused to take the medications after he was arrested in June 2004, according
to an N.C. State Bureau of Investigation report.
January 6, 2005 Charlotte Observer
No criminal charges will be filed in the death last year of a 21-year-old
Gaston County Jail inmate who collapsed in his cell and died of a seizure
disorder. The inmate, Hugh Locklear Jr., repeatedly asked for
medication to control his epilepsy and never received any, said his father.
Jail officials dispute that. So does Gaston County District Attorney Mike
Lands. "There is no indication in here that Locklear (Jr.) asked for
medication," said Lands, referring to a report from the N.C. State
Bureau of Investigation, which looked into the Aug. 28 death. Jail officials
knew Locklear Jr. had epilepsy because he noted it on a form, but they said
he refused to take any medication, the report said. Hugh Locklear said he
filed several requests asking that his son be given medication, but the jail
doesn't have any records showing that, the report stated.
October 23, 2004 AP
A seizure disorder caused the death of a Gaston County jail inmate two months
ago, according to the state Medical Examiner's Office. Hugh Locklear Jr., 21,
collapsed in his cell Aug. 28, turned blue and made gurgling sounds, police
have said. Locklear died later that day at Gaston Memorial Hospital. He was
the second Gaston inmate to die at the jail in August -- raising some
questions about the Tennessee-based company that oversees the jail's medical
care. The
medical examiner's report found that "the history of an untreated
seizure disorder provides a sufficient cause of death" but that
"there is nothing in the history to suggest foul play." The other inmate who died, Yolanda Patterson, 28,
of Gastonia, died of a cocaine overdose, an autopsy determined. She went into
cardiac arrest at the jail. The State Bureau of Investigation is still looking
into the two deaths. The jail's medical care is provided by
Prison Health Services of Brentwood, Tenn., which has come under fire in
other states. The company has been criticized in two reports by New York
state in recent years, and last week, Florida's Palm Beach County terminated
a contract with PHS. Gaston
officials renewed the county jail's contract in late August. They said they
weren't aware of PHS's troubles in other states but have been satisfied with
the level of care it has provided.
September 4, 2004
Gaston County officials say contracting with a private company for inmate
health care saves money, but a watchdog group spokesman says such outsourcing
is a growing practice that can lead to inadequate medical treatment.
Two recent deaths of people held at the Gaston County Jail have raised
questions about the quality of medical care there. Gaston renewed its
contract with Prison Health Services three days after the first death. The
county expects to pay PHS $750,000 during fiscal year 2004-05. Large
companies that specialize in prison health care are interested in making a
profit, so they cut costs where they can, said Ken Kopczynski, executive
director of Florida-based Private Corrections Institute, a group that
monitors privatization of prison health care. He's a lobbyist for the Police
Benevolent Association and believes officers' safety depends on how inmates
are treated. "You get what you pay for," he said. "But
the problem is, a lot of the people that are going into prisons and jails
don't take care of themselves anyway. They probably already have medical
problems." (The Charlotte Observer)
September 1, 2004
Hugh Locklear Jr. did not have a trial. Yolanda Evett
Patterson had not been charged with a crime. Yet each received a death
sentence while incarcerated in Gaston County. Officials at the Gaston
County Jail need to find out why, and how to keep it from happening
again. Mr. Locklear, 21, died Sunday in the Gaston jail awaiting trial on
drug and larceny charges. Ms. Patterson died at Gaston Memorial Hospital Aug.
20 after she stopped breathing in the jail. She was awaiting charges in
connection with shoplifting. Autopsies are not complete. Local and
State Bureau of Investigation probes are under way. But contradictory facts
raise specific questions about the care taken in Gaston County when medical
emergencies arise behind bars. The circumstances of these deaths also warrant
a pointed examination of the record of a private company paid to provide health
care to prisoners. Mr. Locklear's father, also a prisoner in the jail,
said his son was epileptic and did not receive his medication. A jail nurse
and the Gaston sheriff said the son did not cooperate and refused medical
treatment. Ms. Patterson's cousin, who faces charges of misdemeanor
larceny, said she complained of breathing problems after being taken into
custody. Yet jail officials did not respond for about 20 minutes, the cousin
said, and called Ms. Patterson "a good actor." Any police
officer will tell you: Suspects in custody are quick to cry medical emergency
if they think it will buy them preferential treatment in the harsh confines
of a jail. It is often difficult to judge the difference between distress and
a disruptive ploy. Yet allegations that two prisoners' needs were
either bypassed or ignored -- a response that may have contributed to their
deaths -- must be resolved. The record of Prison Health Systems merits
scrutiny as well. Palm Beach County, Fla., officials said the company's
performance in nine inmate deaths persuaded jail officials to drop it as a
health care provider. In New York, the state Commission of Corrections has
issued two reports critical of PHS's performance since 2001 in connection
with two prisoner deaths. Privatizing services is a proven way to
reduce the cost of local government for citizens. Yet accountability is often
the rub. Medical care in particular is difficult to monitor with quantitative
measures because it requires subjective decisions. Most ordinary
citizens have never seen the inside of a jail cell. They do not give much
thought to details like medical care for prisoners. Yet they bear the
financial and moral responsibility for how suspects are treated when in
public custody. All citizens, then, have a direct interest in finding
out what happened when two suspects held in Gaston's jail died. A medical
emergency behind bars should not equate to a death sentence. (The
Charlotte Observer)
September 1, 2004
Gaston County Jail officials renewed their contract with Prison Health
Services last week, just days after the first of two people held at the jail
died after complaining of illness. Gaston officials said they didn't
know about PHS's troubles in other parts of the country where lawsuits have
been filed alleging improper medical care. Last week, the Palm Beach County
(Fla.) Sheriff's Office dropped PHS as its medical provider before its
contract expired, said Commander Diane Carhart Tuesday, citing concerns about
PHS's quality of care. Nine inmates at that jail have died in the last two
years, and a staph outbreak that lasted about a year prompted county health
officials to threaten legal action. Nationwide, PHS serves about
235,000 inmates at more than 400 correctional facilities in 35 states. Fewer
than 500 inmates die each year at those jails and prisons, said Dr. Carl Keldie, PHS's national medical director. The
nation's jails had 919 inmate deaths in 1999, according to a Census of Jails
study from the Bureau of Justice that year. Those deaths included 324
suicides, 385 due to illness/natural causes, and 104 "others,"
including overdoses and accidental injuries. The Gaston County Jail has
had three deaths since it opened in November 1999. Two of those deaths
happened within eight days of one another. (The Charlotte Observer)
August 31, 2004
Jail officials said Tuesday that Hugh Locklear Jr., who was found not
breathing in his cell Saturday, refused medical treatment during the first
two weeks he was incarcerated. As is customary, a jail nurse tried to
fill out a medical questionnaire when Locklear was arrested June 7, said
Gaston County Sheriff Alan Cloninger. "He refused to answer any
questions," Cloninger said. "He stood mute." After 14
days, officers took Locklear, 21, to the jail's medical department, which is
done when inmates refuse initial treatment, Cloninger said. But he refused a
physical exam, he said. Cloninger said Locklear's requests to see a
nurse on June 23 and Aug. 22 were granted. But he declined to say why
Locklear made the request and whether any medication was administered.
(The Charlotte Observer)
August 30, 2004
The company that provides medical care at Gaston County Jail, which has dealt
with two recent deaths, was recently dropped as the healthcare provider by
Palm Beach County, Fla., jail officials. Palm Beach County officials
blamed the performance of Tennessee-based Prison Health Services in nine
inmate deaths in the last two years. "I would think that at the
very least, Prison Health Services with regards to their services to Gaston
County, should warrant an audit," said Gaston County commissioner Tom Keigher on Sunday. The most recent death occurred
Saturday. Hugh Locklear Jr., 21, was found not breathing in his cell
that afternoon. His father, Hugh Locklear, 41, blames PHS. Locklear
said from jail Sunday that his son was epileptic. Father and son had asked
repeatedly for medication since they were jailed about three months ago, but
received none, Locklear said. Autopsy results are pending for Locklear
Jr., who was facing drug and larceny charges. A PHS registered nurse at
Gaston County Jail said that before he died Locklear Jr. was "being
taken care of." (The Charlotte Observer)
Guilford County Jail
Greensboro, North Carolina
Prison Health Services
Sep
6, 2014
courthousenews.com
The
nation's largest provider of correctional medical care ignored a North
Carolina inmate's agonized pleas for help as he suffered excruciating pain
and vomited blood for 10 days, causing a heart attack that left him in a
permanent vegetative state, his family says in a federal lawsuit. Glenda and
Calvin Simmons, the parents of Bryan O'Neil Simmons charge in a lawsuit filed
in the Federal Court in Greensboro, N.C., that Corizon
Health Inc., a firm based in Brentwood, Tenn., and no stranger to lawsuits
accusing it of providing inadequate care to prisoners, violated both national
and state standards of care established for inmates. And they assert these
lapses were aided and abetted by co-defendants, Guilford County, N.C., its
Sheriff, B.J. Barnes, and the Guilford County Sheriff's Department. Bryan
Simmons, 36, a newlywed with no history of health problems, was serving 90
days at the Guilford County Jail for a parole violation when he became ill
shortly before Thanksgiving Day 2012. In a phone call to home that day,
Simmons told his parent that he was unable to go to the bathroom for several
days and that he had been throwing up blood. Two days later, Simmons was
found on the floor of his cell, apparently unconscious, the Simmons say.
Despite the presence of blood on his clothing and floor, Simmons "was
not examined by a physician and his request to be seen at a hospital was
denied by the Corizon staff," his parents say.
Nurses on duty at the jail did draw Simmons' blood, but the lab work was not
reviewed until after he suffered his heart attack. Simmons' parents say that
on Dec. 1, 2012, they received a call from a cellmate that told them their
son had collapsed on the floor, was unable to move and had urinated on himself.
The Simmons say they immediately drove to the jail but their request to see
their son was denied. Despite assurances that their son was fine, the Simmons
say they pleaded for him to be taken to the hospital, explaining that he must
be seriously ill because he was going to be released in two days. In the
meantime, unbeknownst to his parents, Simmons was moved from a general cell
to a medical cell where he was placed on video surveillance because it was
believed he was "Suicidal." According to the lawsuit, this action
was taken "[a]round 4:55 P.M. on December 1, the jailers and nurse
reported that Bryan had a bloody rag in his mouth and wanted to kill himself
due to the pain he was experiencing."The videotape from the jail
purportedly shows Simmons unable to walk, begging for help and writing
"HELP" in the air with his finger. The complaint says nurses told
Simmons he couldn't go to the hospital until he saw a doctor. However, no
physician was scheduled to visit until after Simmons was released from the
jail. Fred DeVore, attorney for Simmons' family, said Corizon
was contracted to provide emergency care 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
"It's just a practical matter that if there is an emergency, you go to
the hospital," DeVore said. "Just because a doctor isn't on call
doesn't mean you don't fulfill your obligations." Corizon's
attorney did not return calls to comment on the case. Despite his worsening
condition, Simmons jailers allegedly continued to prepare for his release. At
1 p.m. on Dec. 2, 2012, the complaint says, Simmons was removed from his cell
and escorted to an elevator. According to Simmons' parents, a video camera in
the elevator showed their son collapsing in the elevator and being pull to
his feet by his handcuffs by a guard accompanying him. On the way to a cell
on the medical ward, Bryan collapsed again from the elevator, and again was
pulled to his feet by the jailer ... approximately eight minutes later,
Simmons went into cardiac arrest caused by excessive internal bleeding from a
perforated ulcer," his parents say. At that point, an emergency 911 call
was made, but, Simmons' parents say, "According to EMS notes, the
responding medics asked for any complaints from Simmons before he collapsed.
Recorded in their notes they were told, 'According to staff, patient was
reported to have vomited once last night however has not had any complaint
today.' There is no mention of the previous days or the preceding night
wherein Simmons had complained of pain, distention, his concern about
internal bleeding or his constant vomiting of blood for at lest four days ..."The Simmons say that after their
son's heart attack jail and Corizon staff were slow
to provide emergency care and failed to give him oxygen for 34 minutes.
"Due to the lack of oxygen after his collapse, Simmons is profoundly
disabled and is in a permanent vegetative state," his parents say.
William
Hill, who is representing the Guilford County Sheriff's Department, said the
detention officers could do nothing to help Simmons because they had to follow
the directives of the Corizon staff.
"We
relied completely on their judgment," Hill said. "They were
contracted to provide medical care. This allowed the detention staff to do
their job of running the jail." Under Corizon's
$6.9 million contract with Guilford County, which ended on June 30, if a
prisoner was transferred to a hospital from the jail for medical treatment, Corizon had to pay the expense. DeVore said believes this
requirement was a critical role in the staff's decision-making: If their son
had been sent to the hospital from the jail, Corizon
was contractually responsible for paying for it. A Florida jury came to that
same conclusion in March 2011 when it found that Corizon,
then doing business as Prison Health Services, was deliberately indifferent
to a Lee County inmate's medical needs and awarded him $1.2 million in
damages. In his complaint, Brett Fields, said he had an infection on his arm
that refused to heal, despite treatment with antibiotics. He complained to
jail personnel over several weeks, insisting that the medications weren't
helping the open wound. He was sent to a medical block that dealt with MRSA
infections, but, the "lax" treatment didn't work. Despite Fields'
worsening symptoms, including his legs twitching uncontrollably, back pain,
and partial paralysis in his lower body, PHS did not send him to the
hospital. An MRI later showed that an abscess was pressing on his spine and
had damaged his spinal cord. Fields is now partially paralyzed. In 2012, the
11th Circuit affirmed the jury's verdict and held that it was reasonable for
the jury to conclude that the company had delayed medical care to save money.
More recently the 9th Circuit ruled that a class of inmates may advance
claims Arizona's prison health care system is dangerously understaffed and
negligently managed. According to a report from Al Jazeera America, a former Corizon employee turned whistleblower claims that staff
shortages resulted in mentally ill prisoners going unfed or sitting for hours
at a time in their own excrement; and that in some cases prisoners died from
lack of proper treatment. Corizon responded to
these allegations with a lengthy statement from Susan Morgenstern, a company
spokesperson, that said in part, "As for lawsuits, we treat hundreds of
thousands of patients in millions of healthcare encounters each year.
Unfortunately, some of those patients are prone to filing lawsuits, which are
simply allegations and not proven. The majority of
lawsuits are brought by inmates without an attorney representing them and are
dismissed or resolved prior to trial." The company has also run into
trouble for not protecting employees from workplace violence and assault. The
company was fined $71,000 last month by the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration for its plain indifference to worker safety and health at
Rikers Island prison in New York. "Corizon
failed to address the serious problem of assaults against its employees until
OSHA began its inspection," said Robert Kulick, OSHA's regional
administrator in New York. "Corizon needs to
develop and implement an effective, targeted workplace violence prevention
program that includes administrative and engineering control, as well as
personal protective equipment and training, to reduce the risk of violence
against its employees."
November 30, 2007 News & Record
The family of a 41-year-old woman who died in the Guilford County jail has
reached a settlement with the national company that provides health care to
inmates. Neither the attorney representing the family of Judy McDaniel Woodle nor a spokeswoman with Prison Health Services
would discuss details of the settlement. Susan Morgenstern, spokeswoman for
Prison Health Services, said the settlement carries a confidentiality clause.
"The issue has been resolved pending approval by the court, and there is
no fault involved," Morgenstern said Thursday. Woodle
died April 30 inside her cell from what was determined to be a strangulated
left femoral hernia. She had spent six days in jail awaiting trial on petty
theft charges and was taking anti-diarrheal and pain medication for what was
thought to be an ovarian cyst. Steve Bowden, an attorney for Woodle's family, said the matter was resolved this week.
"I'm not allowed to reveal the terms. I'm just happy the family was able
to get this resolved," Bowden said. No lawsuit was filed in Woodle's death, he said. Prison Health Services, based in
Brentwood, Tenn., provides care to inmates in 180 jails and prisons across
the country, according to its Web site. It has a contract to provide medical
care to the Guilford inmates through June. The sheriff's office pays the
company more than $200,000 each month for its services. Guilford County
Sheriff BJ Barnes said in May that Woodle began
complaining of symptoms a few days after her arrest and that Prison Health
Services medical personnel did not take her for a hospital evaluation. Barnes
said Thursday that he does not fault Prison Health Services for Woodle's death, calling the care the company provides for
the inmates "more than sufficient."
July 10, 2007 News & Record
Attorneys for the family of a woman who died in jail said the hernia that
killed her should have been detected by a simple physical exam. An autopsy
report for Judy McDaniel Woodle , who died in April, showed she had a visible nodule on
her groin. That lump was caused by the strangulated femoral hernia that
killed her, according to the report. Eddie Darton , an attorney with
the firm representing Woodle's family, said a
physical exam should have easily revealed the nodule, which the report stated
was 3-1/2 inches by 1-3/4 inches by 2 inches. That discovery, in conjunction
with the fact that Woodle had been suffering from
vomiting and stomach pain, should have led to the realization that she had a
serious medical problem, Darton said. Instead, the
hernia went undiagnosed, and Woodle died on April
30 in her cell. Attorney Steve Bowden , who is
representing Woodle's family, said the outcome
would have been different if the problem had been detected. "She'd be
alive today," he said. Guilford Sheriff BJ Barnes said that a doctor had
looked at Woodle while she was in the jail. Woodle had told correctional officers when she arrived at
the jail that she suffered from an ovarian cyst, and she was receiving
medication at the jail for that problem. Barnes said the nodule might have
looked like a cyst, but Darton, who has a medical
degree, said a cyst would not have had that appearance. Bowden said the
family is looking for a financial settlement, and a lawsuit is possible.
"It depends on what kind of cooperation we get," he said.
"She's got five children." If an agreement isn't reached by the end
of August, he said, the matter will move to court. Barnes said he has not
spoken with Bowden but did not rule out the possibility of a settlement.
"You never close any doors on anything," he said. Woodle, who was 41 , had been
jailed six days before her death. She had been charged with stealing $5.09
worth of fish from a Food Lion. She also faced charges of resisting a police
officer and failing to appear in court on a previous theft charge. According
to the autopsy, the hernia led to gangrene, or the death of tissue, in the
small intestine, and complications eventually caused Woodle's
death. Medical care at the jail is provided by a private company, the
Tennessee-based Prison Health Services. Guilford County pays the company more
than $200,000 monthly to provide care at the Greensboro and High Point jails
and the county prison farm. No changes have been made to the jail's medical
procedures, Barnes said, but the sheriff's office is always looking for ways
to improve, he said. "This did not end the way anyone wanted it to
end," he said.
June 5, 2007 News & Record
The company that provides health care in the Guilford County jails told
the sheriff last month it will not share records that explain how its staff
makes medical decisions. Sheriff BJ Barnes requested documents from the
company after an inmate died in April on her cell floor. The News &
Record asked Barnes for some of the records mentioned in a policy manual he
has made available to the newspaper. Barnes contracts with Prison Health
Services Inc. for medical, dental and psychological care of inmates in three
county jails. The Tennessee-based company turned over some information,
including the names of jail medical staff. But in a letter dated May 25, a
lawyer representing Prison Health told the sheriff's office that no documents
would be shared, saying the records are "private, confidential, or
otherwise protected material." Barnes on Monday declined to answer
whether he believes the county has a right to records and manuals maintained
by companies that work for him. "At the present time, I don't have a
need for this information," he said. "There may come a time when I
feel there is a need. If it does, I'll come to Matt (Mason, the sheriff's
attorney) and say 'all right, let's force the issue.'" Because Prison
Health is a private company, its records are not something the News &
Record can directly receive under public records laws. Prison Health's
attorney, Steven Weaver, could not be reached for comment late Monday. His
voice mail message indicates he is out of the office until mid-June. Barnes
and his top officers have maintained that medical staff acted properly in the
days leading to the woman's death. They said they based their conclusion on
talks with Prison Health staff without reviewing records themselves.
"The medical field is not my area," Barnes said. "That's why
we hire them. A doctor or a nurse oftentimes knows things that I don't
know." The county is paying $2.7 million this year to Prison Health.
Among the records it denied to the sheriff: l A copy of the Utilization
Management Resource Manual, a document that, according to Prison Health's
policies manual, is something medical staff can reference when making
clinical judgments. l A copy of the most recent annual review of Prison
Health's "Continuous Quality Improvement Program." l A copy of the
clinical incident report stemming from the death of Judy McDaniel Woodle. Woodle, 41, died April
30 on the floor of her jail cell. The state medical examiner's office found
she suffered from a strangulated hernia, where her intestines got pinched
outside her abdomen and the lack of blood killed off part of the organ. While
the autopsy report has not been completed, medical experts say that with most
untreated strangulated hernias, the bowel ruptures once it dies, spilling
bacteria into the bloodstream. Barnes said last month that Woodle had told staff on her arrival in jail that she
suffered from an ovarian cyst. She had been taking antidiarrheal and pain
medication at the time of her death. Woodle's
family has hired an attorney to review her death. Attorney Steve Bowden was
out of the office Monday and not available for comment.
May 12, 2007 News & Record
The attorney for Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes has asked a
Tennessee-based health care contractor for internal procedural guidelines
following an inmate death in the Greensboro jail. The News & Record had
asked the sheriff's office for those documents and others after Judy McDaniel
Woodle died on April 30. The county pays Prison
Health Services more than $200,000 per month to handle inmate health care in
its jails. The letter from attorney Matt Mason said the sheriff's office
would assess the documents under public records laws and respond to the
newspaper. Among the records requested were company documents outlining how
its physicians should make clinical judgments. Sheriff's officials have said
all proper policies and procedures were followed, even though they had not
reviewed all of Prison Health's written policies. Woodle
died of a strangulated hernia, health officials have said. The letter was
addressed to Steven P. Weaver, a Greensboro lawyer who represents Prison
Health.
May 10, 2007 News & Record
Guilford County sheriff's officials have maintained for the past week
that jail medical staff followed proper procedures treating an inmate who
died last month of a strangulated hernia. They stood by their findings on
Wednesday, while acknowledging in an interview with the News & Record
that they had not reviewed all the written policies of the company contracted
to provide inmate health care. Nor had they examined the medical files of the
inmate, Judy McDaniel Woodle. Sheriff's Maj. Deb Montgomery , accompanied by sheriff's attorney Matt Mason
, said that officials discussed the death with medical staff from Prison
Health Services, a Tennessee-based company. The sheriff's office determined
no mistakes were made based on the discussions, they said. But Prison Health
has not yet provided the sheriff's office with company documents outlining
how its physicians should make clinical judgments. Sheriff's officials would
not reveal details of the talks with Prison Health staff, citing federal health
privacy laws. It is unclear why Prison Health has not given the sheriff's
office the policy documents. The county pays it more than $200,000 a month to
provide medical services to inmates at all three county facilities. Mason met
with an attorney for Prison Health on Wednesday. He said he will brief
Sheriff BJ Barnes today and it will be the sheriff's decision how to proceed
on obtaining the records. The meeting of lawyers was called after the News
& Record requested documents that show how medical staff determine the
need for hospital care. According to Montgomery and records provided by the
sheriff's office, Prison Health is responsible for the first $25,000 of any
hospital care required for a condition that develops in the jail. If costs
exceed that, the county covers the difference. A spokeswoman for Prison
Health was unable to find answers to questions posed by the News & Record
late Wednesday afternoon, including how jail staff are trained and who had
been made aware of the inmate's complaints. As for the medical documents,
sheriff's officials said those files were sent to the State Medical
Examiner's Office, which conducted the autopsy. Woodle,
41, of Greensboro, died April 30 in her jail cell. Staff had given her pain
and antidiarrheal medication for what they believed to be an ovarian cyst. Woodle had not been taken for an ultrasound or other body
imaging tests. The mother of five told jailers upon her admission she
suffered from a cyst, and they observed that the medication appeared to be
relieving pain. Woodle's family hired a lawyer this
week and is now examining legal options. The family's attorney, Steve Bowden,
could not be reached Wednesday afternoon for comment.
May 5, 2007 News Record
The Tennessee-based company that handles medical treatment in the
Guilford County jail declined to comment Friday on why a local inmate died
under its care. A spokeswoman for Prison Health Services Inc. said she was
unaware that a Greensboro woman died until contacted by the News & Record
four days later. Prison Health handles medical care in nearly 300 jails and
prisons nationwide. "We will do a thorough review of our own
files," spokeswoman Susan Morgenstern said. "We will make sure all
our policies were filed. Any time there’s a death, it’s what we do."
Judy McDaniel Woodle, 41, died Monday night from
complications of a strangulated hernia. Her intestine had been choked by a
muscle or tissue in her left upper thigh, cutting off the blood flow. Still,
officials have said all policies and procedures were followed. But the
sheriff’s office could not provide a copy Friday of the written policies and
procedures that govern medical care in the Greensboro and High Point jails,
despite the fact that it had launched an investigation into the death early
this week. Maj. Deborah Montgomery said a lawyer for the sheriff’s office has
requested that documentation from Prison Health after the News & Record
asked for it. Sheriff BJ Barnes previously said Woodle,
facing charges of petty theft, told jailers when she was arrested that she
suffered from an ovarian cyst. The diarrhea and abdominal pains she had
matched those symptoms. "A lot of times, certain things have similar
symptoms," Montgomery said. "That’s common sense." Prison
Health Services last month paid a Florida woman $1.25 million in a settlement
over claims of negligence. The former inmate sued when she gave birth over a
toilet in her jail cell in 2004. The infant died. The woman claimed medical
staff ignored her complaints of labor pains for several hours. Barnes hired Prison
Health in 2005 when the county ended its contract with another provider
because of performance dissatisfaction.
Hertford County Prison
Hertford, NC
GEO Group (formerly known as Wackenhut Correction)
July 15, 2003
Guards at a privately run federal prison in Hertford County would have police
powers under a bill approved unanimously by the state Senate on Monday
night. Already approved by the House, the bill now goes to Gov. Mike
Easley to be signed into law. The General Assembly first gave special
police powers to security officers at the Wackenhut Corrections Corp. prison
near Vinton two years ago, but on a temporary two-year basis. The authority
is set to expire in August. The company said it needed to give its guards
police powers beyond the prison gates in order to catch or shoot escaping
prisoners. The $63 million prison opened in March 2001, housing more
than 700 low-risk federal prisoners, most of them from Washington, D.C.
The law passed in 2001 giving the guards police powers requires that they
notify state officials and the Hertford County sheriff in the event of an
escape. (AP)
April 16, 2003
Guards at a privately run federal prison in Hertford County would have their
police powers extended another two years under a bill approved unanimously by
the state Senate on Tuesday. The bill now goes to the state House for
consideration. The General Assembly first gave special police powers to
security officers at the Wackenhut Corrections Corp. prison near Vinton two
years ago. The authority is set to expire in August. (AP)
August 2, 2001
Guards at a private federal prison in Hertford County can use deadly force in
catching escapees under a bill approved Thursday by the General
Assembly. The security officers at the Wackenhut Corrections Corp.
prison near Vinton will be able to shoot at prisoners who attempt
escape. "I don't want a Kmart security guard carrying a 9-mm
(pistol) chasing after escapes and coming into my county," said Rep. Sam
Ellis, R-Wake. The Hertford County sheriff deputized several Wackenhut
guards to stop escapes after the prison was completed in March and before the
legislation was crafted. Hertford County officials used tax breaks
heavily courted the prison project, which will generate more than 300
jobs. (AP)
Evergreens
Nursing Home
High Point, North Carolina
GEO Care
March 21, 2012 Jamestown News
GEO Care, which planned to put a forensic mental hospital in the site of the
former Evergreens Nursing Home at Five Points in High Point, has been denied
a license by the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). The
company proposed to accept patients from the Dorothea Dix State Hospital in
Raleigh and Central Regional and Psychiatric Hospital in Butner, both
state-run facilities, which are being closed. City of High Point officials
were informed of the ruling on March 14. In a statement, Pablo E. Paez, GEO group vice president, said that the company
will not be opening a hospital in High Point after all. “We can confirm that
our proposed project in High Point will not be moving forward,” Paez's statement read. “We are disappointed Š and are
very appreciative of the support we received from a number of community
organizations and leaders.” Sources report that DHHS needed more information
from GEO Care before awarding the license. Since it was a county-run
facility, the former Evergreens did not pay taxes. The hospital would have
brought the city an estimated $200,000 in annual property taxes for the
22-acre, $3.1 million property. The company planned to bring 185 jobs to the
hospital after a renovation of approximately $20 million, which would include
local labor for the work. The hospital could have been the impetus for
economic redevelopment for the area. The total annual economic impact would
have been $40 million, according to a company spokesman. Although “For Sale”
signs for the site, still owned by Guilford County, remained up during the
state application period, the sale was contingent on the DHHS decision. The
High Point Planning and Zoning Commission originally approved a rezoning
attempt that would have blocked the hospital from coming to the area. Those
sentiments were echoed by both Mayor Becky Smothers and the High Point City
Council. But after Planning and Zoning overturned their original decision on
Dec. 13, 2011 and the Guilford County Board of Commissioners filed a protest
petition on Dec. 14 opposing the rezoning, City Council had to re-think their
options. Reversing their earlier inclination and following the lead of the
P&Z, the council denied the zoning change at a Dec. 16 public hearing,
opening the door for the Florida-based GEO Care to locate in High Point.
Although the vote was split 4-4, with Smothers breaking the tie favoring
rezoning, two-thirds of the council members, or seven votes, were needed to
approve the rezoning request for it to pass. Recent reports in the media
indicated several lawsuits had been filed against the company relating to
conditions in its hospitals/prisons in other states.
March 19, 2012 The Business Journal
Florida-based GEO Care confirmed Monday that it is not moving forward with a
proposal to develop a behavioral health facility in High Point. "We
appreciate the support we received from several community leaders and
organizations in High Point and are disappointed that the project will not be
moving forward," Pablo Paez, vice president of
corporate relations for GEO Group said in a statement. Last week, officials
from the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services said they were still in
conversations with GEO Care about converting the former Evergreens site at
Greensboro Road near U.S. 311/Interstate 74 into a 90-bed mental health
hospital, despite canceling its "request for proposals" evaluation
process. GEO Care was the only company to submit a proposal to the state and
the facility would have housed patients currently kept at Dorothea Dix
Hospital in Raleigh, which is scheduled to close. GEO Care's proposal had
faced opposition from some members of the High Point City Council, who were concerned
that a mental health facility was not the best use for the property. A move
in December to rezone the property to prevent its use as a mental health
facility was unsuccessful.
Lee County Jail
Sanford, North Carolina
Aramark
November 3, 2005 Sanford Herald
District Attorney Tom Lock will not pursue charges against a former Lee
County Jail kitchen employee, who was under investigation for allegedly
buying food with jail funds and using them in his private catering business.
Lock asked the State Bureau of Investigation to conduct a probe into the
issue after it was brought to him in March by Herb Hincks, the chairman of
the Lee County Board of Commissioners, who told Lock that he'd heard that the
chief cook at the jail was diverting jail food to his own business.
"After reviewing the SBI's report, I have concluded that there is no
credible evidence upon which to lodge any criminal charges against the
suspect," Lock said in a press release on Tuesday. Lock said the SBI
reviewed a number of "suspicious" receipts and invoices for food
purchases from various food vendors, interviewed Hincks, as well as county
commissioners Amy Stevens and Ed Paschal, Lee County Finance Director Lisa
Minter and finally the suspect. There was at least some evidence that Hincks'
concerns were shared by others: n Both Stevens and Paschal told the SBI
they'd heard similar allegations against the suspect on a second-hand basis.
n Minter told the SBI that she had concerns about what the county was paying
for meals in the jail compared to other counties. But Lock said that there
was "no substance" to the allegations. Lock said some of the most
compelling evidence came from the suspect himself, whom neither Lock nor
sheriff's department officials would identify other than by his title,
"chief cook." Lock's press release indicates the cook "denied
stealing any food from the Lee County Jail or diverting any food products for
the jail to his personal catering business." Lock also said the suspect
submitted to an SBI polygraph test in August and passed it. The suspect still
works in the jail's kitchen, but not as a county employee. In the summer, the
board of commissioners voted to contract all kitchen duties to Aramark, a
private company. Bryant said he's not sure if it saves the county money, but
he likes the arrangement.
October 2, 2005 Sanford Herald
District Attorney Tom Lock says his review of the investigation into whether
an employee with the Lee County Jail illegally diverted food to his own
catering business is nearly finished. The allegation is that the jail kitchen
employee, who runs a private catering business, was ordering food through the
jail and taking it to use at his own business. The employee, who has not been
named publicly by either the sheriff's department or by Lock, still works at
the jail but not as a county employee, according to Kevin Bryant, chief
deputy of the Lee County Sheriff's Office. Rather, he now works for Aramark,
a company the county began contracting with for food services in the spring.
September 5, 2005 Sanford Herald
State Bureau of Investigation officials are promising to deliver a report
about the possible misuse of food supplies at the Lee County Jail to the
district attorney in the near future. SBI agents have been investigating a
former jail employee for several months on suspicion that he diverted food
from the jail to his private catering service. At the onset of the
investigation in March, SBI agents said it would take them a matter of days
to resolve the matter and hand a report to District Attorney Tom Lock. Six
months later, SBI Agent Jerry Weaver says a report will be handed to Lock
"soon."
August 9, 2005 Sanford Herald
A State Bureau of Investigation probe into a former Lee County Jail employee
is still ongoing. The investigation began in March and, at the time, SBI
officials said it would take three to four days to complete. District
Attorney Tom Lock asked the SBI in March to investigate allegations that a
jail cook was ordering food through the jail and then diverting some of it
toward his own private catering service. The employee - who still works in
the jail's kitchen but no longer as a county employee after Lee County
commissioners voted to contract with Aramark for food service in the jail -
has not been publicly identified.
Mecklenburg
County Jail
Charlotte, North Carolina
Prison Health Services
November 28, 2007 Charlotte Observer
A Brazilian woman, jailed for four days on shoplifting and immigration
charges, has been reunited with her 8-week-old son, and now Mecklenburg jail
officials are asking their health care provider to review its policy on
inmates who are lactating. Danielle Ferreira, 29, was not allowed to nurse
her son or provide breast milk for him while she was in jail. She was
released Tuesday, after the Observer reported her son was spitting up baby
formula, and Ferreira was complaining of pain and fever. Immigration
officials, who were holding Ferreira for deportation, agreed to let her go
until her hearing date. Then, District Court Judge Phil Howerton unsecured
her $500 bond on the shoplifting charge, so she could leave the jail.
Ferreira was reunited with son Samuel on Tuesday and is staying with a Brazilian
couple that had come to her aid. She was glad to have a shower and a change
of clothes, but said the baby was having some trouble nursing. "He has
some difficulty to get the breast," she said. Jail officials would have
arranged for the woman to be released shortly after she was arrested Friday,
said spokeswoman Julia Rush, if they'd known about recently approved federal
guidelines allowing the release of pregnant or nursing mothers in the country
illegally. Ferreira said that in jail she repeatedly asked for a breast pump
because she was worried her milk would dry up. She said the guards gave her
hot towels and told her: If you were worried about that, you shouldn't have
gotten in trouble. "All the time I was in pain because my breasts were full,"
she said. The Mecklenburg jail does not allow women to express milk without a
court order, Rush said. It's a policy of Prison Health Services, the company
that provides health care to inmates and is partly due to liability issues if
the milk got contaminated and made the baby sick, she said. Sheriff Jim Pendergraph, who retires after this week to take a
federal immigration job, has asked the health care company to review its
policy. A check of area jails found that many have no policy on expressing
breast milk and consider the request on a case-by-case basis. Ferreira and
her brother were arrested Friday afternoon at Eastland Mall and charged with
shoplifting. When she got to the jail, officials learned that she is from
Brazil and entered the country on a visa that expired in April 2005. Since
last year, the Mecklenburg jail has participated in a federal program that
identifies illegal immigrants after they are arrested and turns them over to
immigration officials. Ferreira signed a waiver saying she wanted to return
to Brazil voluntarily, so she was being held in the jail for deportation.
Earlier this month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement formally adopted
guidelines that allow pregnant or nursing women to be released under
supervised conditions. But Rush said jail officials had not been made aware
of it. "Both Sheriff Pendergraph and I have
spoken with ICE officials and are working to ensure this does not happen
again," she said.
December 12, 2006 Charlotte Observer
A 29-year-old man died while in custody at the Mecklenburg County jail
over the weekend, and his family is concerned that he wasn't given
prescription medication for the seizure disorder that apparently killed him.
Calvin Bernard Edge died Saturday afternoon, less than 24 hours after he was
brought to the county's central jail in uptown Charlotte on a misdemeanor
warrant charging him with failing to pay child support. A preliminary autopsy
showed he died of a seizure disorder. His mother, Elizabeth Edge, 60, said
her son had suffered from seizures since he had brain surgery for a head
injury about five years ago. He was supposed to take medicine twice a day,
she said, and the jail knew he had the medical problem. It's not clear,
though, whether officials at the jail checked his medical record when he was
brought in late Friday night. A nurse checked out Edge when he was brought to
the jail, as is done with all inmates, Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office
spokeswoman Julia Rush said. But Rush said Edge falsely told the nurse he had
diabetes and did not mention the seizures. However, Edge had told jail
officials about the seizure disorder on at least one past stay at the jail,
Rush said. He had been there at least two other times in the past two years,
records show. That means his disorder should have been listed in his medical
records. Rush said inmates' medical records are sealed to all jail staff
except for the medical professionals hired by its private health care
provider, Prison Health Services. Susan Morgenstern, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee-based
company, declined to discuss the case itself, citing patient confidentiality.
She also said she could not comment on whether staff routinely check past
medical records during inmate screenings. Rush told the Observer that Edge
did not bring his medicine to the jail when he was arrested. However,
Morgenstern said people aren't required to bring their pills to the jail.
Medical staff ask each inmate about any medications they take, she said. The
staff must verify that the prescription remains valid. Then they can give the
inmate the required dosage during the jail stay. Elizabeth Edge told the
Observer that her son still had four refills left of Depakote, a drug
commonly used to treat epilepsy. She said she was looking at his bottle of
pills at their Charlotte home as she spoke to a reporter on the phone. The
Edge family wants answers. Mary Edge, 36, said her brother's medical records
should have been reviewed. She also wants to know why officers didn't check
on him earlier.
May 6, 2006 Charlotte Observer
The estranged husband of a Mecklenburg County jail inmate who died Tuesday of
an apparent infection is calling for the private health service that treated
her to be shut down. And George Henderson said he plans to talk to a lawyer.
"They should have known what was going on," Henderson told the
Observer on Friday. "They ought to be sued. Put them out of
practice." Carol Henderson, 51, died inside a medical unit at the
Mecklenburg County jail early Tuesday morning after spending nearly a month
in custody awaiting trial on a misdemeanor charge of violating a domestic
violence restraining order. A preliminary autopsy shows she died from sepsis,
an overreaction to infection that has high mortality rates. It also found she
had severe heart disease. A full autopsy won't be available for months. A
Mecklenburg sheriff's report, released Friday at the Observer's request,
shows that 28 minutes elapsed from the time a detention officer found
Henderson unresponsive to when medical staff arrived. A quicker response at
that point might not have saved her, said Dr. A.J. Patefield,
Presbyterian Hospital's medical director of intensive care. He did not treat
the woman. However, he said, treatment for sepsis in even the four hours
leading to her death could have made a difference. Charlotte-Mecklenburg
police, the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office and the jail's private
health-care provider, Prison Health Services Inc., are each conducting
investigations. That is standard procedure after the death of an inmate.
May 3, 2006 Charlotte Observer
A 51-year-old woman awaiting trial on a misdemeanor charge died Tuesday
morning while in custody at a Mecklenburg County Jail, prompting routine
investigations into whether officials did all they could to help her. A
detention officer found the woman unresponsive in a medical unit at the
county's central jail around 3 a.m., said Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office
spokeswoman Julia Rush. Medic, the county's ambulance service, was called at
3:17 a.m., with reports that CPR was in progress. The ambulance crew arrived
at 3:24 a.m., but they did not take the woman to a hospital because she had
died. The preliminary cause of death was sepsis, a blood infection caused by
bacteria, according to the Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner's Office. The
woman also had severe heart disease. A full autopsy report won't be available
for months. Jail officials had not located the woman's family by Tuesday
evening so they would not release her name. She was arrested April 7 and
charged with violating a domestic violence restraining order, jail records
show. Charlotte-Mecklenburg police are investigating the death, Rush said.
She added that the guard checked on the inmates in the health-care unit as
required that morning. But she said the Sheriff's Office will conduct a full
investigation once the police department completes its inquiry. Prison Health
Services, the jail's Tennessee-based private health care provider, is
conducting its own investigation into how its employees responded, said
company spokesman John Van Mol.
Mountain View Correctional Facility
Spruce Pine, North
Carolina
CCA
November 26, 2002
'Spoiled food. Used utensils. Charges for sugar, cream and other
condiments. That's what inmates at the Mountain View Correctional
Facility in Mitchell County put up with when they visited the canteen,
according to an internal audit from the state Department of Correction.
To make matters worse, the company that owned and operated the prison until
October 2000, the CCA couldn't account for nearly $30,000 in revenue the
canteen should have generated for inmate rehabilitation programs.
Prison officials called in the State Bureau of Investigation to
investigate. But the SBI found the company's books in such disarray
that no case could be made. Nor did the state demand the company
reimburse the canteen fund. (The News Observer)
October 2, 2000 AP
The Corrections Department officially resumed responsibility for running this
Spruce Pine facility.
June 26, 2000 AP
The state announced Friday it wants to terminate its contracts with a company
that runs two medium-security prisons, ending North Carolina's two-year
experiment with privately run prisons for violent offenders. The state
Correction Department notified Corrections Corp. of America on Thursday that
it wishes to halt operating agreements at the Mountain View Correctional Facility in Spruce Pine and Pamlico Correctional
Facility in Bayboro. The operating agreements were supposed to end in late
2003, but the state wants to take them over now. The state has been unhappy
with staffing levels and the number of convicts employed by the prisons'
industries. It has withheld $1 million in payments from the company since the
prisons opened in 1998.
North Carolina Department of Corrections
November 29, 2001
When a private contractor won the right to build three prisons that it will
lease to the state at a total cost of $370 million, the company chose to
celebrate in a big way. Centex-Rooney of Florida invited state officials to a
contract-signing party last month at the Second Empire Restaurant, where
dinner for two can easily cost $150. But the celebration only drew one taker,
Lynn Phillips, an assistant secretary with the Department of Correction, who
then put his $76 dinner on his American Express card. "Looking at my
responsibilities, I thought that it would be in the best interest of the
public that I pay my own way," said Phillips, who is now seeking
reimbursement from the state. "That way there is no perception of a
conflict." It's a misdemeanor in North Carolina for officials to accept
gifts from companies or individuals with whom they do the public's business.
Correction Secretary Theodis Beck was invited but
couldn't make the event, Phillips said. Other staffers who worked on the
project declined when Phillips told them they would have to pay for their
dinners. (News Observer)
North Carolina General Assembly
January 14, 2011 News Observer
Three out-of-state companies are jockeying for a potentially lucrative state
contract to house and care for people with mental illness accused of crimes
that include murder. Facing massive budget cuts, the state Department of
Health and Human Services last month issued a "request for
information" seeking private firms interested in operating a facility
for about 90 forensic patients. Some of those patients are housed at Dorothea
Dix Hospital in Raleigh, which is set to close. The patients include those
facing charges or found not guilty by reason of insanity for offenses ranging
from first-degree murder to misdemeanor trespassing. Staff members at Dix
also provide the psychiatric evaluations that help determine whether an
accused person exhibiting signs of mental illness is competent to stand
trial, a responsibility that could now be entrusted to a private contractor.
District attorneys and disability advocates have expressed serious
reservations about the plan, citing the sensitivity of the job and the
state's checkered history of privatizations with mental health care and
prisons. A DHHS spokeswoman this week disclosed the names of three firms that
have filed proposals: The GEO Group of Boca Raton, Fla.; MHM Services of
Vienna, Va., and Liberty Healthcare of Bala Cynwyd,
Pa. Records show that all three companies have hired well-known Raleigh-based
lobbyists to help them get the contract, which is potentially worth millions
of dollars: ♦Since 2009, GEO has been represented by Franklin Freeman
at McGuireWoods. Freeman previously served as a secretary of correction, an
associate justice on the N.C. Supreme Court and senior staffer to Govs. Jim
Hunt and Mike Easley. ♦MHM Services hired lobbyist Mark Beason in 2008.
Beason, along with his father Don Beason, were fined for lobbying violations
last year. Once considered among the state's most powerful lobbyists, Don
Beason left the profession because of his entanglements with disgraced House
Speaker Jim Black, who pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges. ♦Liberty
Healthcare hired George M. Teague, a law partner at Nelson Mullins and
longtime lobbyist for insurance companies and bankers. The News &
Observer reported in May that Lanier Cansler, the
DHHS secretary who was a lobbyist, had been meeting with lobbyists for at
least three companies interested in taking over chunks of the state's mental
health system, including the care of those in the forensic unit.
May 20, 2010 The News & Observer
As North Carolina's leaders struggle to balance its budget, they are
considering proposals to outsource parts of the state's troubled mental
health and probation systems. Lanier Cansler,
secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said this week that
he is considering privatizing the care of about 80 mental patients at
Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh in a unit for patients accused of crimes,
including rape and murder. The patients are awaiting trial or have been found
not guilty by reason of insanity. "We're not saying this is a road we
particularly want to go down," said Cansler,
who was previously a lobbyist for private contractors working for the agency
he now heads. "But when we're dealing with budgets and all the issues
we're dealing with, we continue to look at ideas for how we might do
something different or better or save money." Cansler
said he had met with representatives of at least three companies wanting to
privatize part or all of the state mental health care system. He said he does
not favor outsourcing the management of all care. Among the lobbyists Cansler said he had met with is Franklin Freeman, a
senior aide to former Gov. Mike Easley and now a partner with Easley at the
McGuireWoods firm, which does law, lobbying and public relations. Easley, a
Democrat in office from 2001 through early 2009, oversaw the state's effort
to reform the mental health system, drastically downsizing hospitals in favor
of a plan to outsource treatment to private care providers. The result was
long waiting lists for admission to state-run mental facilities, and
community hospital emergency rooms jammed with mentally ill people who could
not find treatment. Among other clients, McGuireWoods represents The GEO
Group Inc., a Florida-based company that provides prison and mental health
management services to governments in the United States and foreign
countries. Perdue's spokeswoman, Chrissy Pearson, said Wednesday that the
governor has discussed privatizing the care of the Dix patients with Cansler and that she is open to the idea. Pearson said
she didn't know whether the governor has met with lobbyists about privatizing
parts of the mental health system. "She meets with a lot of people about
a lot of things," Pearson said.
September 13, 2002
It looks questionable- but at least it was legal. So say defenders of a
$370 million deal to finance three new state prisons through a
nonprofit-keeping construction costs off the state's debt ledger and skirting
the constitutional requirement that voters approve borrowing. The state
made misguided cuts in prevention programs, house arrest and probation this
year. Yet the General Assembly and state Treasurer Richard Moore went
out of their way to devise a creative accounting scheme for building three
new prisons. What does that say about our priorities"
We must not have enough North Carolinians in jail. Granted, the
unorthodox arrangement establishing a nonprofit to mask state debt did
eventually come to light, and it did not break any laws. But the deal
sure seems fishy, especially when that nonprofit's appointed board is stacked
woth donors to the state treasurer's
campaign. It's not really borrowing: This is the height of
semantic hair-splitting. Even though it's a lease-purchase agreement
set up through a shell company, the state will foot the entire bill and own
the buildings at the end. And it's questionable whether the nonprofit
could have landed such a large loan without state backing. So, state
taxpayers have gotten some overpriced prisons through a fiscally questionable
deal with a shell corporation headed by the state treasurers
pals. Then we were denied the constitutional prerogative to approve or
reject them. Please tell us why this was a good idea again.
(Greensboro News and Record)
September 9, 2002
In reference to your Aug.26 editorial, "They only look guilty,"
there are a few points I would like to clarify. First, the decision to
finance the construction of three private prisons in North Carolina without a
vote of the people was made by the General Assembly. We chose to use a
nonprofit corporation to execute a lease-purchase agreement, and then there
is nothing "questionable" about it. Your implication that the
nonprofit corporation is headed by my "pals" is extremely
unfair. Most of the people I have worked with in my professional career
have made "political contributions" to me. My responsibility
is to make certain that the financing of any debt issued by the state is done
prudently and cost-effectively. I fell
confident, as did the administration of the previous treasurer, that the
financing of these private prisons meets those standards. (Greensboro
News and Record)
Pamlico CF
Bayboro, North Carolina
CCA
October 2, 2000 AP
The Corrections Department officially resumed responsibility for running this
Bayboro facility.
June 26, 2000 AP
The state announced Friday it wants to terminate its contracts with a company
that runs two medium-security prisons, ending North Carolina's two-year
experiment with privately run prisons for violent offenders. The state
Correction Department notified Corrections Corp. of America on Thursday that
it wishes to halt operating agreements at the Mountain View Correctional Facility in Spruce Pine and Pamlico Correctional
Facility in Bayboro. The operating agreements were supposed to end in late
2003, but the state wants to take them over now. The state has been unhappy
with staffing levels and the number of convicts employed by the prisons'
industries. It has withheld $1 million in payments from the company since the
prisons opened in 1998.
November 17, 1999
A convicted murderer escaped from the custody of Corrections Corporation of
America staff while undergoing medical tests. The inmate has a history of
escape. CCA officials say that the state of North Carolina will pay for the
cost associated with the search. (New Bern Sun Journal (NC) 11/18/99)
Pitt County
November 30, 2003
Pitt County commissioners will debate Monday how much support they should give
to employees being laid off because of mental health reform. The Board
of Commissioners is being asked to consider keeping long-term mental health
employees on the county payroll so they can receive full retirement benefits.
It also is proposed that laid-off employees who don't find work with a
comparable company be offered a severance package. The recommendations
are part of a resolution and a subsequent presentation to be heard during the
board's 9 a.m. meeting. The suggestions were first presented to the
board this summer in a resolution developed by the county's mental health
advisory board. Under a state mandate, the county is currently
reforming its mental health program. The goal is to have mental health
services delivered by private providers with oversight by a county management
entity. The reform will result in more than 80 layoffs among mental
health staff. (Reflector.com)
Rivers Correctional Institution
Hertford, North Carolina
GEO Group (formerly known as Wackenhut Corrections)
Mar
6, 2021 roanoke-chowannewsherald.com
North Carolina: Jobs over what’s right
WINTON
– The Hertford County Board of Commissioners have approved a two-sided plan
aimed at saving 400 jobs at Rivers Correctional Facility (RCI) while
preserving a sizable amount of the county’s tax base. At a recent meeting,
the board approved two measures: a services contract with the GEO Group, Inc. and an intergovernmental agreement with the United
States Marshals Service. However, a campaign promise made by President Joe Biden
may put the brakes on Hertford County’s plans. In an Executive Order signed
recently by the president, Biden made it clear he does not support privately
operated criminal detention facilities under contract with the federal Bureau
of Prisons (BOP). Late last year, the BOP opted not to renew its contract
with the GEO Group to operate RCI. That 10-year contract expires at the end
of this month. RCI opened in 2001 and its original contract with the BOP was
renewed on March 31, 2011. Under the terms of that contract, RCI would house
up to 1,450 BOP inmates from the Washington, DC area. Hertford County
officials, meanwhile, were searching for ways to keep RCI open, an effort
that is beneficial from the standpoint of preventing the loss of hundreds of
local jobs and maintaining the property taxes paid to the county by GEO. They
found a possible interested partner with the U.S. Marshals Service. Among the
duties of that law enforcement agency is transporting and housing federal
detainees. According to their website, the Marshals Service houses over
55,000 detainees in federal, state, local and private jails throughout the
nation. In order to house these pre-sentenced
prisoners, the Marshals Service contracts with approximately 1,800 state and
local governments to rent jail space. Seventy-five percent of the prisoners
in Marshals Service custody are detained in state, local and private
facilities. In their agreement with Hertford County Local Government, the
Marshals Service will use RCI to house males, females, and juveniles charged
with federal offenses and detained while awaiting trial, those who have been
sentenced and are awaiting designation and transport to a BOP facility, and
those who are awaiting a hearing on their immigration status or deportation.
As stated in the agreement, “the Local Government/Rivers Correctional shall
accept and provide for the secure custody, safekeeping, housing, subsistence and care of federal detainees in accordance
with all state and local laws, standards, regulations, policies and court
orders applicable to the operation of the Rivers Correctional.” The Marshals
Service will pay the county $96 per detainee/per day for up to 500 beds and
$79 per detainee/per day for bed space in excess of
500. Hertford County, in turn, will subcontract with the GEO Group and pay
them the same per day rates to make beds available at RCI for the purpose of
housing and caring for the federal detainees. As part of that contract, the
GEO Group will pay Hertford County an administrative fee of $12,500 monthly
($150,000 annually). The GEO Group will also maintain and provide evidence of
a comprehensive and adequate plan of insurance coverage. “What we’ve done at
this point is that the commissioners have agreed, in principle, to the
contract and the agreement should a deal be reached between all parties,”
said Hertford County Manager David Cotton. “The contract with GEO is
contingent on the agreement between the county and the Marshals Service. If and when that agreement is reached, then all parties
can proceed with signing the documents. “What this all boils down to is the
Marshals Service convincing the Department of Justice and the Bureau of
Prisons that this type of detention facility is needed,” Cotton added. The
county has worked on these plans for the past few months. “I initially
reached out to GEO to see what the county could do to keep them open here,”
Cotton said. “Once we began conversations on a plan, we were both aware of
what the Biden administration was going to do in regards to
his recently enacted Executive Order. We were looking for a way to circle
around that. “At the forefront of our conversations was keeping these jobs,”
Cotton continued. “There aren’t enough employment opportunities here for
those individuals to find another job. That was one of the key points our
commissioners talked about when we brought them up to speed on our plans.”
All the county can do at this point forward is wait
and see if a deal can be forged at the federal level.
Jan
30, 2021 pulse.ncpolicywatch.org
NC’s
only private federal prison will close, more to follow after Biden ordered to
end BOP contracts with private facilities
President
Biden has directed the Department of Justice to end private federal prison
contracts in an executive order, a promise he made during his campaign. “To
decrease incarceration levels, we must reduce profit-based incentives to
incarcerate by phasing out the Federal Government’s reliance on privately
operated criminal detention facilities,” the executive order noted systemic
racism in the mass incarceration and stated that decarcerating
the prison population is a priority. There are 14,122 inmates — less than 10%
of the federal prison population — in 12 contracted federal private prisons
nationwide. The one in North Carolina, the 1,450-bed Rivers Correctional
Institution, is a low-security, all-male facility in the Hertford County town
of Winton, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. But the DOJ already
decided not to renew the contract with Rivers last year, according to
Business Wire. The contract will expire March 31, 2021. The BOP website
stated that the majority of BOP inmates in private
prisons are criminal aliens who may be deported upon completion of their
sentence. For Rivers, that’s the majority of its
prison population. The rest, around 160, were District of Columbia Code
offenders, many of whom have mental health issues and are going through a
reentry program. The owner of Rivers, The GEO Group, Inc., runs 9 of the 12
federal contract prisons. The facility will transfer the federal inmates and
lay off 336 positions, according to the company. The GEO Group is a
Florida-based company founded in 1984, according to its website. A 2016 DOJ
Inspector General report cited a problem with contraband and violence at
Rivers. The report also noted higher safety and security incidents per capita
than at public prisons run by the BOP. The report led to a memo issued by
former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates to reduce contracts with private
prisons, according to the GEO Group. But the Trump administration quickly
reversed the decision and renewed the contracts. The ACLU released a
statement supporting the move by the Biden administration, saying “Prison
privatization increases the potential for mistreatment and abuse of
incarcerated people, and this move by the Biden administration will start
curtailing this insidious practice.” But the civil-rights organization also
called for more action against prison profiteering of other players,
including for-profit prison health care companies and private prisons
contracted with the Department of Homeland Security. A national advocacy
group, the Detention Watch Network, reported widespread abuse, medical
neglect, poor quality of food and sanitation, language access concerns, as
well as lack of accountability in private prisons contracted with the
Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the DHS. A GEO Group spokesperson
released a statement, calling the executive order “a solution in search of a
problem.” The statement said that the BOP had already announced steps over
the last four months not to renew expiring contracts with private companies,
“President Biden’s Executive Order merely represents a political statement,
which could carry serious negative unintended consequences, including the
loss of hundreds of jobs and negative economic impact for the communities
where our facilities are located, which are already struggling economically
due to the COVID pandemic.” The GEO Group spent more than $1.5 million in lobbying
in 2019 and contributed over $1.4 million in the 2020 election cycle,
including $11,010 to Sen. Thom Tillis, $10,000 of which came from the company
PAC, according to campaign finance research group the Center for Responsive
Politics.
Nov
23, 2020 businesswire.com
The
GEO Group Announces Decision by Federal Bureau of Prisons to Not Rebid Its
Contract for Rivers Correctional Facility
BOCA
RATON, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The GEO Group, Inc. (NYSE: GEO) (“GEO”)
announced today that the Federal Bureau of Prisons has decided to not rebid
the contract for the company-owned, 1,450-bed Rivers Correctional Facility in
North Carolina, which is set to expire on March 31, 2021. The contract for
the Rivers Correctional Facility generated approximately $43 million in
annualized revenues for GEO. GEO expects to market the Rivers Correctional
Facility to other federal and state agencies. George C. Zoley,
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of GEO, said, “We have operated the
Rivers Correctional Facility under a public-private partnership with the
Federal Bureau of Prisons for 20 years. Over the last two decades, our
employees have delivered high quality services, helping Washington D.C.
residents at the Rivers Correctional Facility achieve successful rehabilitation
and community reentry outcomes. Federal prison populations in the United
States have experienced a decline, more recently as a
result of the COVID-19 pandemic. We expect to market the Rivers
Correctional Facility to other federal and state agencies.” In an effort to
enhance the community support services for Washington D.C. residents housed
at the Rivers Correctional Facility, GEO established Reentry Success D.C. in
collaboration with the National Federation of Federal Employees (an affiliate
of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers). The
program enhances GEO’s pre- and post-release services by connecting returning
citizens to gainful employment. Reentry Success D.C. is available to every
GEO Continuum of Care participant at the Rivers Correctional Facility, who is
returning to Washington D.C. upon release. Additional information on Reentry
Success D.C. can be found at www.reentrysuccessdc.com
Sep 15, 2017 oanoke-chowannewsherald.com
Prison uprising quelled
WINTON – An incident here last week at Rivers Correctional Institution was
apparently controlled by the staff of the private prison located just outside
of Winton. While efforts made by this newspaper to contact the GEO Group, the
parent company of Rivers Correctional, failed, details of the incident were
gained through Hertford County Sheriff Dexter Hayes. Hayes said he was
notified on Tuesday night of last week that in excess of 100 inmates refused
to be locked down following some sort of disturbance reported in a secured
outside area of the prison. “We were informed that an incident occurred among
some inmates who were outside and they refused instructions by the prison
staff to go to an assigned area,” Hayes said. “Apparently this disturbance
carried forward inside as I learned that numerous inmates in one of the
prison’s housing units refused to be placed on lockdown.” Hayes added that
the inmates who were in the secured area outside reportedly showed their
reluctance to follow commands from the prison staff by staging a “sit in.”
The Sheriff said he was also made aware that some of the inmates managed to
break into the office of a prison counselor from where they used the
telephone to call the media, their family members, and even Hertford County’s
E-911 (dispatch) Center. “Our dispatch center was flooded with phone calls from
inmates who said there were multiple injuries involved with what they termed
as a riot at Rivers Correctional,” Hayes said. “I immediately got on the
phone with the warden there and discovered that the information being shared
by the inmates was false.” However, Hayes said he “sided with caution” and
notified Hertford County Emergency Management and Hertford County EMS. “I
wanted them to be aware of what was taking place at the prison and for them
to be on standby just in case they were needed,” Hayes said. “I also sent my
deputies to patrol the area near the prison, but they were not to go onto the
property because our assistance was not requested by the warden.” Hayes said
he did offer the services of his department to the warden. “I was advised
that they were able to gain complete control of the inmates who had refused
to go into lockdown by around 5:30 a.m. the next morning (Wednesday, Sept.
6),” Hayes stated. The Sheriff said he was informed by the Rivers
Correctional warden that no inmates or staff were injured during the
incident. “To date, I have not been presented any cases by the prison staff
that would involve my department in making any arrests on criminal charges
linked to this incident,” Hayes concluded. Rivers Correctional Institution,
which opened in 2001, houses inmates from the District of Columbia through a
contract between the GEO Group and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. It has a capacity of 1,450.
Oct 11, 2012 The Associated Press
(Raleigh, NC) -- Two guards at a private prison in North Carolina have
been charged with accepting bribes to smuggle in cellphones and cigarettes.
Rhonda Boyd and Raye Lynn Holley worked as correctional officers at Rivers
Correctional Institution, a 1,450-bed prison in Winton, N.C. According to a
federal criminal indictment made public Wednesday, Boyd is charged with
conspiracy to commit bribery and acceptance of a bribe, while Holley is
charged with accepting a bribe. The indictment alleges that the two had been
smuggling contraband into the prison since early 2011. Rivers is a private
prison owned by The GEO Group, Inc., a Florida-based company that contracts
with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to house federal inmates and detainees.
Many of the prisoners housed at the facility are from the District of Columbia.
March 14, 2011 Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald
A prison guard found himself on the other side of the bars here last
week. Eric Lashawn Askew, 28 of Ahoskie, a Sergeant with Rivers Correctional
Institute of Winton, was arrested by the Hertford County Sheriff’s Office on
sexual assault charges. Sheriff Juan Vaughan said Askew, who turned himself
in on March 9, was charged with attempted second degree rape, a felony,
sexual battery and assault on a female, both misdemeanors. Vaughan said the
alleged crimes took place against a female correctional officer at the
private prison.
October 17, 2007 Washington Post
The private North Carolina prison where about 1,000 D.C. inmates are
held, the most in any single place nationwide, has substandard drug treatment
and vocational training programs compared with most federal facilities, the
U.S. Bureau of Prisons said yesterday. Harley G. Lappin, the bureau's
director, said he is revising the federal government's contract with the
Rivers Correctional Institution to make the facility "mirror as close as
we can the programs offered in other prisons." The acknowledgment came
after years of complaints from inmates, their families and prisoner advocates
about Rivers, which is about 200 miles from the District in Winton, N.C. Lappin
promised the changes during a hearing convened by Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton
(D-D.C.), who has been pressing the Bureau of Prisons to make reforms. Norton
has contended in recent months that the 7,000 D.C. inmates in 75 institutions
nationwide get "second-class" treatment compared with the rest of
the 200,000 inmates under federal control. She recently visited Rivers and a
federally run prison in Cumberland, Md., to compare the way inmates are
treated. Activities at the two places were as different as night and day, she
said. At Rivers, Norton said, inmates had too much unproductive free time. At
Cumberland, programming was more organized, with inmates shuttling from one
event to the next. D.C. inmates at Rivers are held alongside immigrants who
have committed crimes and are serving their time before being deported to
their home countries. Those inmates often are not offered the same programs
in prison as U.S. citizens. "If you're a District resident, you get
tired of not having rights, even when you go to jail," said Norton, who
at times grew testy with prison officials. Nonviolent federal offenders get a
year off their sentences if they complete a 500-hour drug treatment program.
But prisoners serving time for D.C. offenses get no such consideration, even
though the D.C. government passed a law two years ago that said they deserved
the time off. Lappin said he expected the disparity to be changed soon. The
congressional hearing was the first in the decade since the District asked
the federal government to assume control of its prisoners. Norton said the
scrutiny was long overdue because inmates were hundreds or thousands of miles
away, out of sight and out of mind of most residents. But their families
never forgot that their loved ones, once sequestered at the Lorton prison
complex in Northern Virginia, needed more attention. Hundreds, in fact,
showed up at a recent meeting to voice their concerns. Yesterday, two former
inmates appeared on Capitol Hill. Douglas Robinson, 52, has been incarcerated
for 16 years, 11 at Lorton and the rest in Bureau of Prisons facilities. At
two of the institutions, he said, he often could not enter programs he wanted
because they were full or canceled. But he credited a 500-hour drug treatment
program at Butner Federal Correctional Institution in North Carolina with
helping to save his life. "For so long, I had ducked and dodged that I
had a problem," he said. "I learned that my behavior was causing my
problem. When I arrived home, I made a choice to move on with my life."
Out for six months, he now works at Goodwill Industries, stocking trucks.
Kevin Barnes, 30, served three years at Rivers. The library was cramped and
contained few books, he said. The focus instead was athletics, and the
majority of inmates spent their time playing basketball, football and other
sports. "That's not going to help an inmate when they come home,"
said Barnes, who said he now works as an electrician. The GEO Group, a
company that runs 68 correctional and residential treatment facilities
worldwide, owns and operates Rivers. The prison's warden, George Snyder,
defended the institution in testimony yesterday, saying that there are plenty
of classes, in such areas as anger management and computer skills, available
for inmates. As a career prison official, Snyder said, he is committed to
providing even better programs.
June 28, 2007 Washington Post
A D.C. prisoners' rights group claimed in a lawsuit yesterday that a
private penitentiary contracted by the federal Bureau of Prisons has provided
"grossly inadequate and inhumane" medical treatment to hundreds of
District inmates in a quest to improve profits. The suit, filed in U.S.
District Court, alleges that prisoners at the Rivers Correctional Institution
in Winton, N.C., are routinely denied care or provided with inadequate
treatment. A majority of the inmates at Rivers, 70 miles southwest of
Virginia Beach, are from the District. Keith Mathis, 32, a plaintiff in the
class-action suit, said he asked to have an infected tooth pulled but
received a filling instead. Over the next few months, the problem worsened,
growing into an open sore and eventually requiring emergency surgery when his
face "burst open," the suit alleges. Mathis's case is one example
of poor treatment alleged in the suit filed in the name of 10 current or
former inmates against the Bureau of Prisons; its director, Harley G. Lappin;
and the GEO Group Inc., which owns Rivers. "There's one doctor for 1,300
patients," said Philip Fornaci, executive
director of the D.C. Prisoners' Legal Services Project, which filed the suit.
"We have been getting complaints from prisoners at Rivers for five or
six years. In the last several months, we have been on-site verifying those
complaints. They were so widespread that we decided to file suit to improve
the situation." District prisoners, as part of a deal with Congress cut
a decade ago, are spread throughout the federal prison system. Some
facilities are run by the federal prisons bureau. Others are operated by
private firms that provide services, including health care, to inmates. Fornaci said the Bureau of Prisons failed to provide
oversight. "The contract itself actually encourages a skimpy use of
medical resources to maximize profits," he said. The Bureau of Prisons
did not respond yesterday to the allegations. John Bulfin,
general counsel for the GEO Group, said the company had not seen the suit and
could not comment until the allegations have been investigated. Of the
199,000 inmates in the federal system, 20,900 are in private prisons. As of
last week, 1,379 were at Rivers, nearly 1,000 of them District residents --
about 15 percent of D.C. prisoners in the federal system. Many of the inmates
at Rivers are older than 40, with chronic health conditions. Here are two
examples from the suit: · Inmate Charles Lewis, 57, the suit alleges, had
suffered three heart attacks and two strokes. He had Bell's palsy diagnosed
when he arrived at Rivers in May 2006. At the D.C. jail, Lewis received
physical and speech therapy, treatment from specialists and proper medication.
Once at Rivers, however, he had his back and knee braces confiscated. Therapy
was discontinued. He was moved to a top-floor cell and top bunk, the suit
alleges, increasing his chance of injury. · An inmate identified as John Roe
had depression and schizophrenia diagnosed, and he attempted suicide three
times. He had chronic infections on his legs, a herniated disk and an ear
infection. He has been denied medical care since arriving, the suit alleges.
"This is not the jail. You're not the community," the man was told,
according to the suit. "This is a business." Mark Corbett, 48, was
incarcerated at Rivers from 2004 to 2006. In the criminal justice system
since he was 12, Corbett served time at Lorton before it closed and in
federal prisons in Connecticut, Michigan, New York and West Virginia. He
suffers from depression and has foot and dental problems. At Rivers, he said,
it was difficult to get an appointment with the doctor. Rivers was the worst
one I have seen in my life," said Corbett, who is in the District
looking for a job. "The nurses have a nasty attitude. They wouldn't give
me an eye appointment. I had to virtually curse this man out to pull my
wisdom tooth. . . . Some people do abuse the system and try to see the doctor
every day, but [at Rivers] they take it out on everybody -- even those with
serious illnesses."
August 4, 2003
WINTON -
Local, state and federal officials are praising the quick action by
authorities here at Rivers Correctional Institution (RCI) who uncovered and
defused a murder plot that targeted four RCI employees. On Monday, RCI
employee Sylvia P. Wilkins, 44 of 103 Mt. Olive Road, Windsor, was arrested
and charged with four counts of solicitation to commit a felony -
first-degree murder. After being transported from the Bertie County Sheriff's
Office, Wilkins was placed in the Hertford County Jail under a $600,000 bond
($150,000 for each count). Wilkins, a former teacher at
Southwestern Bertie Middle School, made her first appearance on Tuesday in
Hertford County District Court. A probable cause hearing has been scheduled
for Aug. 12. According to Lt. Steven Stephenson,
Special Investigations Supervisor at RCI, Wilkins was employed as a
vocational/computer teacher at the prison. She had been employed there for
two years. The RCI inmate whose assistance was allegedly solicited by Wilkins
was disciplined by prison officials for the role he played in the murder
plot. His name cannot be publicly released. Other than
confirmation that the four intended murder targets were either co-workers or
supervisors of Wilkins, those names were not released. Lt. Stephenson
could not comment on how long the murder plot was ongoing, saying that once
he became aware of it on June 24, "I immediately contacted Hertford
County Sheriff Juan Vaughan and Jerry Gaughran
(Special Agent with the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector
General)." "We were contacted because
prisons, including those owned privately such as RCI, are under the
jurisdiction of the Office of the Inspector General," stated Gaughran. (Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald)
Xe (formerly Blackwater)
August 29, 2010 Huffington Report
The most important word in the phrase private security contractors is
"private." If and when someone working for a PSC does something
wrong the company, depending on the offense, may very well fine him, ship him
home, and fire him. But they will do nothing more. They can't, as they
rightfully point out, because they are, after all, a private company and
processes like arrests, prosecutions, convictions and incarceration are
something the state reserves to itself. Well, okay, not necessarily
incarcerations, as anyone familiar with the Corrections Corporation of
America will know, and I'll skip over the obvious old joke about the best
legal defense money can buy, but that is another story. A classic example of
this happened back in December 2006 when an off-duty Blackwater employee,
Andrew J. Moonen, who had been drinking heavily,
tried to make his way into the "Little Venice" section of the Green
Zone, which houses many senior members of the Iraqi government. He was
stopped by Iraqi bodyguards for Adil Abdul-Mahdi,the country's Shi'ite vice president, and
shot one of the Iraqis. Officials say the bodyguard died at the scene.
Although Mahdi wanted the man turned over to the Iraqi government, that did
not happen. Blackwater fired the contractor and fined him
$14,697--the total of his back pay, a scheduled bonus, and the cost of his
plane ticket home. However, less than two months later he was hired by another
private contractor, Combat Support Associates (CSA),to
work in Kuwait, where he worked from February to August of 2007. Because the
State Department and Blackwater kept the incident quiet and out of Moonen's personnel records, CSA was unaware of the December
incident when it hired Moonen. Blackwater
subsequently acknowledged that the guard had done wrong but said there was
little Blackwater could do about it. As Erik Prince of Blackwater said in a
congressional hearing: PRINCE:(From tape) Look, I'm
not going to make any apologies for what he did. He clearly violated our
policies . . . we fired him, we fined him, but we as a private
organization can't do any more. We can't flog him, we can't incarcerate
him. That's up to the Justice Department. We are not empowered to enforce
U.S. law. Nine months later a congressional report revealed that the guard
was so drunk after fleeing the shooting that another group of guards
took away the loaded pistol he was fumbling with. Furthermore, the acting
ambassador at the United States Embassy in Baghdad suggested that Blackwater
apologize for the shooting and pay the dead Iraqi man's family $250,000, lest
the Iraqi government bar Blackwater from working there. According to the
report, Blackwater eventually paid the family $15,000 after an embassy
diplomatic security official complained that the "crazy sums"
proposed by the ambassador could encourage Iraqis to try to "get killed
by our guys to financially guarantee their family's future. Now it is
true that PSC and private military contractors have to act, at least
theoretically, in accordance with all sorts of laws both nationally and
internationally, as well as regulations and directives from government
departments (State and Defense in the case of the United States) as well as lots
of contract language spelled out in the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR)
and Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations (DFAR). Still, without the
political will of the United States to act there can be no individual
criminal accountability.
August 20, 2010 New York Times
The private security company formerly called Blackwater Worldwide, long
plagued by accusations of impropriety, has reached an agreement with the
State Department for the company to pay $42 million in fines for hundreds of
violations of United States export control regulations. The violations
included illegal weapons exports to Afghanistan, making unauthorized
proposals to train troops in south Sudan and providing sniper training for
Taiwanese police officers, according to company and government officials
familiar with the deal. The settlement, which has not yet been publicly
announced, follows lengthy talks between Blackwater, now called Xe Services,
and the State Department that dealt with the violations as an administrative
matter, allowing the firm to avoid criminal charges. A company spokeswoman
confirmed Friday that a settlement had been reached. The State Department
spokesman, Philip J. Crowley, said he could not immediately comment. The
settlement with the State Department does not resolve other legal troubles
still facing Blackwater and its former executives and other personnel. Those
include the indictments of five former executives, including Blackwater’s
former president, on weapons and obstruction charges; a federal investigation
into evidence that Blackwater officials sought to bribe Iraqi government
officials; and the arrest of two former Blackwater guards on federal murder
charges stemming from the killing of two Afghans last year. But by paying
fines rather than facing criminal charges on the export violations,
Blackwater will be able to continue to obtain government contracts. While the
company lost its largest federal contract last year to provide diplomatic
security for United States Embassy personnel in Baghdad, where the Iraqi
government was incensed by killings of Iraqis in one highly publicized case,
it still has contracts to provide security for both the State Department and
the C.I.A. in Afghanistan. Blackwater, its reputation tainted in part because
of the excessive use of force by some of its personnel in Baghdad, sought for
years to extend its reach far beyond the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan.
For a time, the company’s founder, Erik Prince, had ambitions to turn
Blackwater into an informal arm of the American foreign policy and national
security apparatus, and proposed to the C.I.A. to create a “quick reaction
force” that could handle paramilitary operations for the spy agency around
the world. He had hopes that Blackwater’s military prowess could be an influential
force in regional conflicts around the world. Mr. Prince, a former Navy Seals
member and the heir to an auto parts fortune, took an interest in Africa,
particularly the Sudan, and he is said to have wanted Blackwater to step in
to help the rebels in southern Sudan, which is predominantly Christian and
animist, fight the Sudanese government and the Muslim north, despite United
States economic sanctions. Blackwater’s ambitions in Sudan where described in
detail by McClatchy newspapers in June. The settlement with the State
Department, involving practices from the days before Blackwater was rebranded
as Xe Services, comes as Mr. Prince is trying to shed his ties to Blackwater
and its past activities. He overhauled the company’s management in 2009, changed
its name, and has now put the privately held company up for sale. He has just
moved with his family to Abu Dhabi from the United States, a move that
colleagues say was a result of his deep anger and frustration over the
intense scrutiny he and his firm have received in recent years. The State
Department export controls require government approval for the transfer of
certain types of military technology or knowledge from the United States to
other countries. But Blackwater began to seek training contracts from foreign
governments and other foreign organizations without adhering closely to
American regulations. The company also shipped automatic weapons and other
military equipment for use by its personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan in
violation of export controls, and in some cases sought to hide its actions,
according to the government. In one incident, Blackwater shipped weapons to
Iraq hidden inside containers of dog food. A federal investigation into the
company’s weapons shipments to Iraq led to guilty pleas on criminal charges
by two former Blackwater employees who are believed to have cooperated with a
broader federal inquiry. Investigators reportedly looked into whether some of
the weapons that were shipped to Iraq were sold on the black market and ended
up in the hands of a Kurdish rebel group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or
P.K.K., which Turkey considers a terrorist organization. Turkish officials
reportedly complained to the United States about American weapons seized from
the group. In 2008, after a federal investigation of Blackwater’s actions was
begun, the company admitted “numerous mistakes” in its adherence to export
laws, and created an outside board of experts to supervise the firm’s
compliance. Current and former government officials say that the government’s
inquiry into some of Blackwater’s export control violations began as part of
a federal grand jury investigation in North Carolina, where Blackwater is
based. But the matter was apparently shifted to the State Department when the
criminal investigation in North Carolina narrowed its focus. That grand jury
handed down the indictments of the five former Blackwater executives earlier
this year. That indictment includes charges that Blackwater executives sought
to hide evidence that they had given weapons as gifts to King Abdullah of
Jordan. Despite the fines and investigations that have plagued Blackwater,
the firm has continued to win contracts from the State Department and the
C.I.A. In June, the State Department awarded Blackwater a $120 million
contract to provide security at its regional offices in Afghanistan, while
the C.I.A. renewed the firm’s $100 million security contract for its station
in Kabul. At the time, the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, defended the
decision, saying that the company had offered the lowest bid and had “cleaned
up its act.”
August 18, 2010 Government Executive
It will be "very challenging" to comply with an edict Afghan
President Hamid Karzai issued this week to remove all private security
contractors from Afghanistan within the next four months, according to
Pentagon and State Department officials. "Obviously that is a very
aggressive timeline and one which I think our forces and commanders as well
as the State Department and ambassador will be working with the government of
Afghanistan to achieve," Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman told
reporters on Tuesday. About 20,000 armed security contractors work for
Defense, State and the U.S. Agency for International Development in
Afghanistan, guarding supply convoys, key personnel, checkpoints and
installations. Thousands more work for media outlets, private corporations or
nongovernmental organizations. But Karzai said the companies still operate
with impunity and with little oversight and regulation. He also argued the
presence of private security contractors undermines the efforts of
Afghanistan's security forces. Karzai expects Afghanistan to assume control
of all security functions nationwide by 2014. Whitman noted that while the
United States shares a common goal with Karzai to eliminate the need for
private security contractors, "we also recognize that Afghanistan
presents a daunting security challenge." According to Defense Department
figures, there were 16,733 private security contractors in Afghanistan as of
the end of March -- a 415 percent increase from the 3,000 who were in the
county 15 months earlier. Many of the contractors are Afghan nationals, who
would have options for staying on. The State Department, which has more than
1,000 private security contractors on its payroll in Afghanistan, also
suggested that Karzai's time frame might be overly ambitious. "We
continue to support the Afghan government's intent to properly regulate the
activities of private security companies in Afghanistan," State Department
spokesman Mark Toner said. "There are questions of implementation,
however."
August 17, 2010 Reuters
Afghan President Hamid Karzai issued a decree on Tuesday setting a deadline
of four months to disband private security firms to avoid the misuse of
weapons which had caused "horrific and tragic incidents." The
decree said the order to disband the companies, which employ up to 40,000
people working mainly for Western enterprises in Afghanistan, was being
issued "to prevent irregularities" and the misuse of weapons and
other military equipment. "I am signing the dissolution of all local and
foreign security companies within four months," said the decree, issued
by the presidential palace. The decree includes an exemption for firms whose
guards work inside compounds used by foreign embassies, even though Karzai's
office said last week there would be no exceptions. Karzai has long called
for the disbanding of such companies, which compete for contracts worth
billions of dollars, and said last week that time was running out for them.
The push to scrap the firms is linked to Karzai's ambitious 2014 timetable
for Afghan forces to take over all security responsibility from foreign
forces, who presently number almost 150,000 troops. Private security companies,
which are not accountable to the Afghan government, have long been an
irritant for Afghans and for U.S. and NATO forces in the country after a
series of scandals. The U.S. military also employs some of them and the
Pentagon said last week it was in talks with Karzai's government to address
its concerns.
January 7, 2010 AP
Two ex-Blackwater guards have been arrested and charged with the murder
of two Afghans. Twenty-seven year-old Justin Cannon and 29-year-old Chris Drotleff have been indicted on charges of second-degree
murder, attempted murder and weapons charges, the AP reports. The two were
charged because of an incident last year at an intersection in Kabul, when
the two allegedly opened fire on a vehicle and killed two Afghans.
Blackwater, now known as Xe, fired them soon after over the incident. This is
the latest setback in what was been a rough year for Xe, but that hasn't
stopped the military contractor from pushing for even more Defense Department
contracts.
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